Five Tips To Living a Sustainable Life in the New Year

Keeping a household running and sustainable is a real possibility in the modern world. The first thing you will need to do is make an assessment of your daily activities and create a daily to-do list so you can work out where changes need to be made to achieve living a sustainable life.

It typically takes six months for new habits to form. Repetition and drive to be sustainable is the key. A great place to start your sustainability journey is with the The Nature Conservancy. TNC’s Everyday Sustainability Guide is a great resource to download to get you thinking of sustainable ways to save money. They offer a vast amount of information based on historical work and cutting-edge research in how to conserve natural while enriching our lives.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

There are a vast amount of ways to reduce your carbon footprint on our Earth. As a family of six, two of our most treasured is growing our own food and driving less. While this may seem like something you are incapable of achieving, the fact is that they are not that hard.

Take a city dweller like myself with a small yard in the Midwest and large family. We plant our food in garden boxes that can be moved indoors during the winter months. This allows us to add variety to what we are able to achieve. We also keep lemon and lime plants all year round as well as a continuous small planter of herbs. It does take near daily work but this is a task that we can share and pass the knowledge down to our children.

Drive Less

This was by far one of the hardest changes our family made. We had become too reliant on the modern vehicle to take the extra time and energy needed to do anything different. Though after much debate, we made small changes at first like walking to school when the weather permitted it. It was in fact, less than a mile each way and played a double deed in also providing our bodies with the exercise we need to sustain a healthier body balance.

Then as a family, we moved on to bigger stretches like walking to the local grocer and mall. In this, we found that we also purchased less during each visit knowing that we had to carry it back on our return trip. This meant we only bought the necessities saving money as well as reducing our carbon footprint along the way.

Be Energy Smart

The monthly energy bill can often be one of the big ones that cost a lot of money and be taxing on the Earth. Cooling and heating the home, and leaving lights on can bring a lot of extra and unnecessary charges to your energy bill.

Start being conscious about energy consumption, and try to work out ways that you can save money on energy, or new ways of adjusting your lifestyle, to become more energy efficient. Installing solar energy infrastructure in the home can help immensely with your energy bills and head you in the right direction of living a sustainable life. While it can be costly to install, will provide great savings in the long run.

You should also take time to shut down things that can be that seen energy hogs. Take a look at things in your home like your stereo or WiFi router. They can be a drain on your power supply even when not in use.

Reduce Your Food Waste

Food wastage is one of the most costly things in the modern world, and every year there are tons of food thrown away. If you find that you are one of those people who seems to throw away a lot of food that has gone bad, or is not eaten, then start looking at things differently. See how much that food you actually need to make the meals you are already preparing. Often times, you can buy less just by opting to use the butcher or by using a food saver to freeze the overage. Do some research on the foods that last the longest and also new creative ways to use leftovers to create new meals instead of tossing them in the trash.

Need more suggestions to help you start on those New Year’s sustainable resolutions? You can take urgent action today by making a tax-deductible donation by December 31. Download TNC’s Everyday Sustainability Guide by entering your name and email to read the tips and get motivated to start now.

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About the author

Mrs. Hatland is a 30-something married, mom of 7 and the face behind the popular online publication, Motherhood Defined. Known as the Iowa Mom blogger by her local peers and “The Fairy Blogmother” worldwide. She has professional experience in working closely with clients on brand ambassadorships, client outreach services, content creation and creative social media advertising exposure.

It is so important to be environmentally friendly in on this Earth! Thank you for your tips to help all of us. Surprisingly, it is easy to conserve energy and save the environment, but only if we remember to stay conscious about it and help others achieve the same goal.

We have been working hard to do all these things. I would suggesting making small changes at first instead of going crazy and then running the risk of giving up. As we have incorporated small changes in our family our eyes have been opened to so many wastes and solutions that we didn’t even think about at first.

Great tips. I wish more people would start caring about the earth. My mother taught us as young children in the 60’s to care and reduce waste. I have switched to so many great reusable products and nontoxic cleaning products. My children have learned from me and also care about the earth.